
by R.L. Butler
Drew Nelson thought her biggest problem was training a chatty new coworker - until she caught him drinking blood from his date. Instead of running, she makes a deal. What begins as damage control doesn’t stay a small secret for long. Someone powerful is moving through Seattle, and as unexplained violence spreads and the stakes climb, Drew is pulled deeper into a world she never knew existed. Because once you learn what moves in the dark, you can’t unknow it. Trust becomes complicated. And the life she worked so carefully to build begins to fracture. Some discoveries don’t just change your life - they change what you believe life is. Sharp, darkly funny, and grounded in modern Seattle, Living Blood is a supernatural tale about loyalty, loss, and what survives when the version of your life that you planned no longer exists. ❖ 🩸 ❖ What You Can Expect Character-driven urban fantasy – centered on emotional depth, quiet tension, and flawed, layered people navigating the supernatural in modern life. Slow-burn storytelling – grounded pacing that rewards attention to subtext, dialogue, and the small human moments between shocks. Psychological realism – trauma, secrecy, and survival explored through grounded reactions and introspection rather than spectacle. Atmospheric prose – sensory, moody, and often laced with dark humor; the ordinary and uncanny coexist seamlessly. Subtle worldbuilding – modern settings threaded with believable supernatural rules; no exposition dumps. Emotional intimacy – found family, complicated love, and moral ambiguity take center stage over action. Unease and wonder – vampires, prophecies, and gods appear not as fantasy tropes, but as reflections of what it means to be alive.
#27
7/29/2026
Peak #28
9d
#26
6/21/2026
Peak #34
8d
#25
6/16/2026
Peak #31
4d
#24
6/8/2026
Peak #22
7d
#23
6/2/2026
Peak #29
6d
Rank updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Entry forecast updated 13 Aug 2026, 04:15 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#7473 of 7,531 · 7423 below #50
By genre
beats 77% of similar stories
beats 87% of similar stories
beats 22% of similar stories
Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
At this conversion, the Contemporary Rising Stars bar (≈0 new followers/day) costs about 91 views/day — the story currently gets ~56.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.